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Kretania psylorita

Cretan Argus

Field Notes

Crete, Greece, June 2004

Crete, Greece, June 2004

Crete, Greece, June 2004

Crete, Greece, June 2004

Crete, Greece, June 2004

Crete, Greece, June 2004

Here's a typical endemic butterfly. With a world wide distribution of only two mountains in Crete it is common and easy to find. Above roughly 1400m the butterfly could be found on Mt Ida in ones and twos in most places but in parts it was commoner, particularly where gullies provided enough moisture for flowering plants to survive. The habitat seems very harsh. It is extremely rocky with almost no vegetation over much of the mountain.

As a butterfly it is rather dull and bland. Both sexes have brown uppersides with orange sub marginal lunules more extensive in the female. The undersides are plane grey with a weak submarginal band of dulled orange yellow and the typical black spots found on Lycaenids are very small. The contrast in the photos above may looked washed out and featureless but that's how they are!

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